Strangers
by Appeltje Fruitschaal
Summary: Scorpius tiredly muses about his parents one night in the holidays. He knew they weren't the kind of people to hug and kiss and be all touchy-feely, but a little nod of acknowledgement would be nice. All was it only to show him they knew he was still alive. OneShot.


Scorpius lay face down on his bed, trying to muffle the noises inside his head with his pillow, and trying to fall into the void of emptiness some people called sleep.

The flecks light had left on his retina kept distracting him from going into that blessed emptiness though, and his thoughts kept returning back to earth.

It was probably for the best. He remembered vaguely that his aunt and uncle were coming over for dinner tonight, and he better be on time.  
He looked up at the clock. The hands swam before his vision, and Scorpius blinked rapidly. He lay back down with a sigh when his eyes had focused and silently began counting down for dinner.

His mother was a creature of habit after all.

_Three hundred seventy-five. _

Dinner would be a dull affair. It was the same song every time. His mother would sit still and straight like a dignified queen, appearing to all the world as she was; a statue carved from nothing but formalities.  
His father would talk. The hollow words that came from his lips would be the only entertainment of the night, besides the tasteless food that was brought by the house-elves he was forbidden to speak to.  
Food was always tasteless when he was at home.  
Colours were sure to start fading after some time as well, leaving nothing but a grey world behind.

_Three hundred twenty-one. _

His father's hollow words filled with nothing but bitterness and contempt.  
It was better than the silence that usually ruled the big mansion his parents called home and Scorpius called summer torture.  
Every summer, when school ended, he was forced to come back here.

_Three hundred and six. _

His parents. The two people that brought him into this world and kept him here, giving him everything he had.  
These black thought included.  
It was his father who was responsible for them.  
His father and his dark words and his darker demeanour.  
His father wasn't a good person. Not a good person at all.

_Two hundred ninety-one. _

When Scorpius had been younger, he had been curious about his parents. He had wanted to know them and what they did. His curiosity had stopped at the age of five.  
Strangers they were, and he had excepted that.

_Two hundred seventy-five. _

No, they were more than strangers The strangers Scorpius met and saw; he wanted to know them. He wanted to know what kept them busy during the day and awake at night. He wanted to know their successes and their failures.  
Not his parents. They were the kind of strangers you crossed the street for, just so you wouldn't have to look them in the eye when you passed.

_Three hundred fifty-seven_.

But he had to. He had to survive staying at his parental home for at least seven weeks a year, and it was possible. Manageable even. He could have a seasonably peaceful summer. All he had to do was lie low, avoid his parents, become practically invisible and become one with the house.  
All that for reasonably peaceful.  
Scorpius sighed and wondered once again if there wasn't anything to do for him to keep him busy. Anything to make him stop thinking for a few minutes.  
He had run out of chores ages ago. Besides helping his mother pick out her jewellery, there was very little he could do. They had - as his father do respectfully put it - lower people for that.

_Two hundred twenty-one. _

His father did not think his son should lower himself to mowing the lawn, and when father didn't approve of something, it did not happen.  
His father, bitter to the core.  
When you looked him in the eyes, and looked past the disapproval you always saw in them, you could see the deep hatred and old grudges he had against life itself and everything remotely joyful.

_Two hundred. _

Scorpius sometimes allowed his mind to wonder over to his mother.  
He wondered if she had turned bitter because of over-exposure to his father, his father who's bad mood even rubbed off on Scorpius, or if she had turned bitter long ago in her own childhood.

_One hundred eighty-six. _

if she hated the world for everything it had taken from her in her youth.  
Now it was ever taking her youth away from her, every minute of every day.  
She held a special place for him in her rotten heart.  
Scorpius figured she still hadn't forgiven him for the pain he had caused her when he had been born, and that he had ruined her figure.

_One hundred sixty-nine. _

So, he kept his head down and tried to go unnoticed by the two people who hated the world and everything in it, including him.  
Scorpius found it better this was. He didn't know his parents. The only thing he knew were their cold masks and icy tones.

_One hundred fifty-four._

The relentless way they punished him if he did something that did not please them, and the casual air around them while he was screaming in agony, and the careless way they left him afterwords, were the things that were most familiar to him about his parents.  
And that was best, because if he knew his parents, maybe he wouldn't be able to hate them back.  
If he knew his parents, maybe he would take after them, become like his father.  
Bitter and spiteful.  
Become like him mother.  
Black as night.  
He was himself now, mostly left untouched by that back influence.

_One hundred and twenty. _

Filth.  
Others, like Scorpius' friends looked up to his parents and their dignified masks. They knew their bad reputation, and still admired them for their detached air of greatness. Scorpius saw beyond that, saw the flashes he got from behind the mask.  
Filth and misery.  
They told him all he needed to know.

_One hundred and six. _

He guessed he was the only person that ever had been able to look past those hardened mask. Well, he, and they themselves.

_Ninety-four. _

The worst thing was that they knew they could show him, because Scorpius would never do something. He would never get help, or so something insane like report them. No one would hear it from his lips.  
He kept up the fucking lie they told everyone.  
He pretended just as much as they did. Pretended to have a peaceful family with a rich father and a beautiful mother.

_Seventy-nine._

Pretended they weren't filth.  
Pretended all his scars were from accidents and he was happy with the life that had been forced upon him.

_Sixty-one_

Because what else could he do?  
There was only one thing Scorpius could say he had inherited from his family; their pride.  
And this was his problem, no one else's. He would deal with it, just like he always had.

_Forty-two_

Scorpius gritted his teeth and opened his eyes. A blank room looked back at him. Nothing adorned the walls. It was as good as a guest room, just the way he liked it.  
They would know this wasn't his home, if they even noticed.

_Thirty-five._

He stood up and dragged himself to the mirror, trying not to scrape his injured arm against anything.

_Twenty-nine._

His reflection looked back at him, pale and gaunt.  
His hair was dishevelled from lying on the bed and he had dark circled under his eyes, but besides those minor errors, he thought he would even fulfil his mother's expectations.  
He had half expected to look like an offspring from a zombie and a vampire.

_Twenty-five._

He quickly fixed his hair and straightened the dress-shirt he was wearing. thankfully, his sleeve held no trace of the deep cuts underneath it.

_Ten._

He tried to smile, just to see if he could still do so.  
It looked painful.

_Three._

He opened the door,

_Two._

Took a deep breath,

_One._

And stepped out into the hallway.

"Scorpius!" The misleadingly pleasant voice of his mother drifted up the stairs. "Dinner's ready!"

Scorpius was besides her in eight seconds. His mother was of the opinion that you were late when you weren't besides her within ten seconds after she called.

She hated tardiness.

As Scorpius had expected, she looked him up and down, scrutinising his appearance.  
She tisked and began tugging at his hair, 'fixing' it. he let her, winching slightly when she pulled too hard.

"Can't you do anything about those bags under your eyes?" She asked, trailing one slim finger along his cheek. Scorpius shivered at the cool touch and shook his head.

She nodded curtly, withdrawing her hand. "Dining room." She said. All the warmth her voice had held a moment before was gone.

Scorpius sighed and slowly followed her, bracing himself for an evening full of false words and pretences.

The rule about not lying to your family didn't extend to them.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed it. I have a short - kind of different version of this somewhere, and worked it out into a OneShot.


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